Ducks Battle Satan

This was originally released in 1991. 15 years later those nice people at Blossoming Noise had the good sense to re-release it. The field of noise seems to be awash with reissues at the moment.  The almighty Merzbient, Necro Acoustic, the first two Kevin Drumm records, Nurse With Wound and Current 93 has all been released in the last couple of years. This as been a boon for me particular because I came to the genre of experimental/noise so late.  My first experience with Sudden Infant was the tragically overlooked Psychotic Einzelkind. The punk rock/noise on display there is a very different beast to  the sounds on display on Radiorgasm.

Radiorgasm is a very difficult record. It’s all experimental tape stuff and dada primal scream weirdness with added gibberish In fact it has much more to do with early Nurse With Wound that it does with many of his Noise contemporaries.  I’m not sure whether this is a good record. I’m not a huge fan of the more arty aspects of experimentalism and in some ways this record seems almost self conscious in its difficulty. On that basis I’m not recommending this but  I can’t stress how important it is to listen to his more recent offerings on Blossoming Noise. Those records are great. This has only mild interest.

I’ve wanted to get a Sudden Infant record for a while. When Carlos Giffoni wears your T-shirt and Daniel Menche links to your blog there is a good chance that suckers like me will notice and end up buying your  record. This came out last year and guess how many “Best of” lists it made? On my trawl of the interwebs: fuck all. That makes little sense because listening to Psychotic Einezelkind has to be one of the most pleasurable music experiences I’ve had this year. The music here (and yes it’s not just noise) is great. The opening track was like a cross between Gallon Drunk and Wolf Eyes with some Neubaten-like percussive abuse. The sort of goth-like Skullflower stuff that that bloke from Astral Social Club dismisses but I love. In fact the tracks for the most part are full of menacing bass with drone and noise elements thrown in for good measure. Despite its musical inclination this  record  has  moments which remind me that his bloke is almost European noise royalty  especially on the second track Deep Cuts which has that rolling sand storm of noise effect that Merzbow does so well. This is the record that no one heard last year and that’s a fucking travesty.